People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity(set)
Any Political and party leadership 8 Government and administration 1 Diplomacy and international organization 2 Industry and production 1 Social movements and organizing 2 Scholarship and theory 1
Affiliation

Most people

Any Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 1 Left Opposition 1 Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP) 1

All 3 affiliations

Bulgaria

Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP) 1

Soviet Union

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 1 ↳ Left Opposition 1
Position
Any Left critics of Bolshevism 1 Marxism and communism 1
Citizenship
Any Bulgaria 1 Soviet Union 1
Background(set)
Any Russia 179 Poland 27 France 21 Ukraine 17 Germany 15 Belarus 12 Hungary 12 Georgia 8 Latvia 7 Estonia 6 China 5 Czechia 4 Finland 4 Lithuania 4 United States 4 Korea 3 Romania 3 Spain 3 Trinidad and Tobago 3 United Kingdom 3 Albania 2 Bulgaria 2 Democratic People's Republic of Korea 2 Greece 2 Moldova 2 Serbia 2 South Africa 2 Switzerland 2 Armenia 1 Azerbaijan 1 Brazil 1 Chile 1 Czechoslovakia 1 El Salvador 1 India 1 Ireland 1 Madagascar 1 Martinique 1 Slovakia 1 Uzbekistan 1 Vietnam 1
Era
Any

People of the Soviet Union

The revolutionary generation1917–1940 1

People of the wider world

The Cold War and decolonization1945–현재 1
Social movements and organizing Background: Bulgaria Clear all

Christian Georgievich Rakovsky

Христиан Георгиевич Раковский
Soviet Ukraine Left critics of Bolshevism Soviet Union Bulgaria 1873–1941 ✕ Executed

From Balkan revolutionary to head of Soviet Ukraine: the diplomat who became an opposition theorist

"Our misfortune is that we held responsible posts and power turned our heads." Final plea at the 1938 Moscow trial

A pan-European revolutionary of Bulgarian ethnic origin who also held Romanian citizenship, Rakovsky founded the Balkan Social Democratic Federation. As chairman of the Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars from 1919 to 1923 he helped build the Ukrainian Soviet state, and he later served as Soviet ambassador to Britain and France. A Left Opposition theoretician who challenged Stalin's nationalities policy and party bureaucratisation, he was expelled in 1927, admitted his errors to Stalin in 1934 and was readmitted in 1935. Sentenced to 20 years at the Third Moscow Trial in 1938, he was shot at Oryol on 11 September 1941 and rehabilitated on 4 February 1988.

Career timeline
  • 1890–1896Medical studies in Geneva, Berlin, Montpellier; active in European socialist movements
  • 1910Revived Romanian Social Democratic Party; founded Balkan Social Democratic Federation, first secretary
  • 1919–1923Chairman of Sovnarkom of Ukraine; People's Commissar of Foreign and Internal Affairs
  • 1919–1927Member of the Central Committee of the RCP(b); Orgburo member (1919–1920)
  • 1923–1927Plenipotentiary representative of the USSR to Britain (1923–1925) and France (1925–1927)
  • 1927–1935Left Opposition leader; expelled from party, exiled to Astrakhan, Saratov, Barnaul
  • 1934–1937Admitted his errors to Stalin in 1934, readmitted to the party in November 1935; head of scientific institutes administration at RSFSR Health Commissariat
  • 1937–1941Expelled again in 1936, arrested January 1937, Third Moscow Trial 20-year sentence; shot at Oryol on 11 September 1941

Todor Hristov Zhivkov

Тодор Христов Живков
Bulgaria Communism Bulgaria Bulgaria 1911–1998 ○ Natural causes

The Eastern Bloc's longest-serving leader, 35 years as Moscow's most loyal Balkan ally

"Judge me, but the time will come when the people will be left without bread and without honor" (upon his arrest, 1990)

Born to a poor peasant family in Pravets near Sofia, he trained as a printer and joined the Bulgarian Communist Party in 1932. During World War II he organized anti-fascist resistance around Sofia under the partisan name 'Yanko.' Rising after the war under Chervenkov's patronage, he became First Secretary in 1954 and ruled for 35 years, longer than any other Eastern Bloc leader. Working closely with Khrushchev and Brezhnev, he oversaw rapid industrialization and rising living standards, while the 1987 'July Concept' attempted limited market reforms. His 1984 forced-assimilation campaign against ethnic Turks drove hundreds of thousands abroad. He fell in a party coup on 10 November 1989.

Career timeline
  • 1932Joined BCP; led party cell at State Printing House
  • 1941–1944Anti-German resistance — Sofia 3rd district head, political commissar of 'Chavdar' partisan brigade
  • 1945–1949BCP CC candidate member → Sofia First Secretary → Mayor of Sofia
  • 1950–1954BCP CC Secretary, candidate Politburo member — agriculture and collectivization
  • 1954–1989BCP First Secretary (1954–81) → General Secretary (1981–89) — supreme leader for 35 years
  • 1962–1971Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister)
  • 1971–1989Chairman of the State Council (head of state)
  • 1989.11.10Deposed in party coup; expelled from BCP